“I’m with the Genremongers”
So our outlining of a new trend tends to sound very realistic, almost apologetic: “This is just a catchall term for a loose idea, it’s interesting and small and underground, we’re not so foolish as to say the world has changed.” All of this has the great advantage of being completely true. But compared to that kind of comic-book music world I liked in the papers, it’s obviously a bit less fun — the whole thing that everyone mocked those papers for was the sense that as soon as someone came up with “witch house” they’d put two of the bands on the cover for a feature story that said FORGET EVERYTHING YOU EVER KNEW ABOUT MUSIC, WITCH HOUSE IS THE FUTURE OF EVERYTHING, and then two issues later they’d have some punks on the cover with a quote line like “WITCH HOUSE IS SO BORING, THE FUTURE IS US.”
(via tomewing)
Something I had no room for in the column (because of print wordcounts) is a feeling that genres now are also a bit more bottom-up than top-down. Or a bit more reflective of some actual real social activity, rather than being reflective of a magazine with some new bands and a deadline. With some of the NME-generated scenes the people involved knew each other and worked together, with others the “movement” was utterly fictitious and trend-piecey. But now it’s much easier for bands with a shared aesthetic to collaborate and get to know one another so the genres have an existence beyond the hype, which means the hype is less dramatic.
Also there’s a lot less at stake! My favourite genre piece story is Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne putting his own band into a “here it comes kids - London’s answer to Manchester!!!! OMG!!!!” piece he was writing (or editing) for Melody Maker (the details are fuzzy so it might not be QUITE as corrupt as I’m recalling - but in any case St Etienne would have been the best band in that feature so no harm done)
The point being that if the genre splash coincided with an actual A&R frenzy you could suddenly get an actual career out of it. Whereas I don’t get the feeling anyone involved in Witch House is planning to make any money - it’s just something young creative people are doing for a bit and if it works, great, and if it doesn’t, no biggie. So that lack of world-changing-ness is coming from the acts too I guess.
HISTORICAL NOTE: The 90s music paper movement which really did become a byword for that sort of comic-book tone is ROMO, which I didn’t mention because it was very deliberately like that - an attempt to hustle an 80s/glam/synthpop revival into place before the world was ready, to prevent the four years of completely tedious UK music we DID get. Also an attempt to royally piss off Ocean Colour Scene fans, in which aim it succeeded admirably.
